Buenos Aires, November 27 (NA) – The Supreme Court of Justice dismissed this Thursday a series of appeals filed by businessmen investigated in the case known as "Notebooks," who sought to have their cases transferred to Electoral Justice on the grounds that payments made during the Kirchnerism corresponded to unformalized campaign contributions.
With the signatures of judges Horacio Rosatti, Carlos Rosenkrantz, and Ricardo Lorenzetti, the highest court rejected the arguments of Hugo Dragonetti, Jorge Mauricio Balán, and Armando Losón.
The accusation maintains that it was an illegal fundraising scheme from the Federal Planning Ministry, through the collection of bribes in exchange for public works contracts.
In the trial, former President Cristina Fernández de Kirchner, 19 former officials, and 65 businessmen are among those being tried, along with other accused.
It was also mentioned that in analogous cases, other businessmen had managed to have their cases referred to the electoral jurisdiction.
In June, I Chamber of the Federal Chamber of Criminal Cassation admitted the appeals of the defenses, including that of businessman Angelo Calcaterra, who also stated that the payments requested by Kirchnerism officials were to finance campaigns.
Losón's defense had argued that the payments recognized before the justice system corresponded to the 2013 and 2015 election campaigns and did not imply personal benefits or for the firm Albanesi SA, of which he is a director.
The case has dozens of collaborating defendants whose testimonies have made it possible to reconstruct the functioning of the alleged corruption system.
As reported by the Argentine News Agency, the "Notebooks" case had its fifth hearing this Thursday, and the Public Prosecutor's Office once again placed former President Cristina Kirchner at the center of the accusation, attributing to her the role of "main recipient" of the bribes that businessmen gave to Executive Branch officials.
This last one, who appears as a collaborating defendant in the case, had maintained that the notes that mentioned him in the driver Oscar Centeno's notebooks were falsified.
The central argument of the Court was that the presentations were not directed against a final or equivalent sentence, a criterion that had already been used in other similar resolutions issued in recent weeks in relation to this file.
The Supreme Court upheld the trial for the "Notebooks" case and revoked the dismissal of Carolina Pochetti.
The businessmen's claim had been rejected in February by the Federal Oral Court 7, which pointed out that it had already been raised during the instruction stage and dismissed.
There, several sections of the "Notebooks" case were unified, which originated in August 2018 with the disclosure of Centeno's notes and the subsequent detention of officials and businessmen.
However, at the end of November, Cassation rejected the appeals and confirmed the holding of the oral trial for the crime of bribery.
The oral process began in early November before the Federal Oral Court 7.
